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How much more powerful was the N64 compared to the PlayStation anyway?

Branduil

Member
Emulation shots are neither here nor there I guess but I found these and I just want to share how crazy the textuework in DewPrism was.

ss9.jpg
ss12.jpg


ss16.jpg
ss20.jpg


ss3.jpg
ss15.jpg


For a PS1 game it's bonkers.
The thing about great art design that's planned around the limitations of the platform is that it will never look bad. That's why Wind Waker will always look great.
 
I'm pretty sure you're wrong about this. I certainly can't name a single 2D game on the N64 that uses detailed sprites and multiple parallax layers, comparable to something like Symphony of the Night on PSX. The art style of Yoshi's Story looks like a way to cope with these limitations.
That's just because so few developers actually tried to do 2d on the system, I'm pretty sure. It's perfectly competent at 2d, just like the PS1, in that both actually put their "2d" sprites on polygons, instead of actually directly drawing sprites.

Turok 2 was leagues better than just about every PSX game.
Yeah, Turok 2 is really impressive visually... and in hi-res mode it's even more amazing. Of course Turok 2 in hi-res mode has an incredibly low framerate, but it does at least look outstanding...

What the fuck am I reading? It's not like the N64 didn't have good games, but the PS1 is generally considered to have a far better library than the N64, simply because it had a far bigger library than the N64.
No, that is entirely an opinion. The N64 has quality over quantity. More games is not always automatically better.

Yeah DewPrism is an exceptionally good looking PS1 game, one of the best.
Yeah, Threads of Fate does have some of the most impressive visuals I've seen on PSX. Great game too.

Never even heard of DewPrism, wtf. Looks gorgeous.

oh, it's Threads of Fate? My girlfriend just got that to play on Vita. On a scale of Secret of Mana to Ys, how much of an action game is it?
Threads of Fate is fantastic. It's basically one part platformer, one part action-RPG, and all great fun.

Is there a source on this? I've seen opinions flying back and forth but nothing that suggests that one opinion is more adhered to than another.

And I'm saying that as someone who likely agrees that the PS1 had a bigger, broader and richer library than the N64. I think that if someone considers the N64 library as better though, their opinion isn't exactly radical or unusual.

My take -> N64 had the very best titles of the generation on it. The PS1 had more great games than the N64, of such broad range and experience, that they trumped the N64's lineup. Does that make sense?
That source would be "PS1 fans". Those are the ones who think that. So no, there's certainly no consensus. :)

But yeah, it is a question of quantity versus quality, as I said. I can see going the other way, but I prefer the N64.

Had Nintendo gone with a CD-based system and upped the texture memory, the N64 could have almost competed with the Dreamcast.
Wave Race 64 still looks amazing to this day.
I know some of it has been said, but no, a CD drive would have hurt the N64 as much as it would have helped it. A CD-based N64 would have been more expensive, and area size would have been somewhat limited too, like it is on PS1 versus N64 -- see, the way the N64 does those huge areas in games is by directly streaming them off the cart. You can't do that in a CD game. Also, loading times would have negatively affected the games as well. There are real drawbacks to using CDs. As for advantages, CDs might have kept more third party support (though Sony's lower costs would probably have still drawn away a lot of it), and it'd have allowed FMV-heavy games on the system. Overall, I think Nintenod did the right thing. Yes, they lost first place in part because of the carts, but hardware-wise it was absolutely the right thing to do. I do wish that the N64 had had a larger texture cache though, sure. That was just a failure of foresight -- they were assuming that games would continue to be a mixture of textures and shaded polygons, like Mario 64 is.

Remember CD drives were the blu-ray drives of today (not to be confused with the blu-ray drives at the start of this gen ;)) the media was cheap, but the drive itself was still relatively expensive... Add into the fact that Nintendo would likely have needed more RAM for caching (access time would have been way to slow for it's 4k of texture ram) and the N64 could easily have added another $50-100 per the cost of the console.

It'd be akin to saying "PS1 would have easily blown the N64 out of the water if it had $99 additional worth of video hardware in it!"
Yeah, exactly.

It was in a league above when games of the same type by competent developers were compared.

Compare say, Coolboarders to 1080. Janky, jaggy, poorly animated mess with texture seams everywhere, to a rock solid, slick, smooth looking game with really amazing snow.

Goldeneye was a near launch game and was completely out of the PS1's league in almost every way.
Yeah, I still can't figure out why Coolboarders was popular... I've tried several of them, and they seem so bad...

That said, VF2 on Saturn and Tekken 3 were technical marvels on Saturn and PS1. I still can't believe Tekken 3 was done on the PS1, it was ridiculous.
Yeah, there probably aren't any N64 fighting games quite on par with VF2 or Tekken 3, but that's just because none of the best fighting game developers were working on the system... the best you're going to get is Fighters Destiny, Flying Dragon, and Mace: The Dark Age, I'd say. I don't like Tekken or Virtua Fighter (or Soul Blade) much myself, so I would rather play those three N64 games than Tekken or VF (I do love Soul Calibur though, it's just Soul Blade I dislike; Calibur is certainly better than any N64 fighter), but they're not on the same level of production.

BTW the game isn't that great but I was always impressed by how Atari ported Mace to N64:

Mace%20-%20The%20Dark%20Age%20%28U%29.png
It's good for the time, I think. One of the better 3d fighters that gen... the issue really is that I think that 3d fighting games is probably the genre that saw the biggest overall improvement between the 5th and 6th generations.

No. It was the limited texture memory available to the system (just 4kb).

The vaseline filter you speak of isn't necessarily the result of the textures, however.
The filters are there because Nintendo required almost all games to use this one microcode setting, because they didn't trust developers to mess with it themselves (or wanted to keep that in-house only), so they all run with that. There are some 2d games which might have benefitted more from another microcode option, but Nintendo pretty much only allowed Boss Games (World Driver...) and Factor 5 (Battle for Naboo...) to use custom microcode, of outside developers, and that was because they convinced Nintendo to allow them to do it.

N64 bigest advantage over PS1 was perspective correction. Yes n64 had bilinear filtering, but at such a low resolution it just made things worse in my opinion. All n64 games were blurry mess in my eyes. Another reasons why n64 graphic look like that is because textures were made to look great as PIXEL ART.

PS1 was better used thanks to huge support from developers. On end N64 did not have anything that beats Gran Turismo 2, Tekken 3 or Sould Blade, Crash Bandicoot 3, Soul Reaver, Wipeout XL/3 and so much more it is not even funny. Also PS1 had amazing sound, and thanks to use of CDs more music and FMW. 2

Anyways, am not trying to convince anyone. Fanboys will stay fanboys.
To answer OP, N64 was indeed more powerfull but in same time it badly crippled by cartridges.
Do you mean gameplay or graphics there, for that game list? Because the N64 can answer all of those...
GT2 - World Driver Championship
Tekken 3 - Fighter's Destiny 1/2 probably, though that's more Virtua Fighter; same for Flying Dragon
Soul Blade - Mace
Crash series - N64 has many 3d platformers that are better than anything on PS1
Soul Reaver - Zelda games
Wipeout - N64 Wipeout 64 is incredible and my favorite 5th gen Wipeout

C'mon son. Here's GT2;

gt2_screen016.jpg


And here's Rush 2049 64;

rush2049_screen002.jpg


It's not even close.
Hey, it's good old "compare good shot of game A to bad shot of game B" in action!

Even so though, even with such a misleading comparison, you can't get away from how pixelated and jaggy that PS1 shot is in comparison to Rush 2049. It looks really bad because of that.

Turok 2, however, features more detailed models but suffers from large, boxy environments and a VERY VERY poor framerate. I can't stress enough how choppy Turok 2 is. The framerate is bad to the point where they should probably have cut detail back in order to maintain a smoother clip.
Do you mean Turok 2 in regular or high resolution? In high res the framerate is very low, but in normal res it's better...
 

This graph explains so much about what ultimately happen between the war of those 2 consoles.

PSX had so many games available, I remember a friend of mine owned so many freaking games I had never even heard of, which was weird considering I used to read all the gaming magazines of the time.

Tons of shovel-ware but also amazing gems.
 
Nopes, Wipeout 3 ran at 512x256. WE3:Special Edition had a a widescreen mode, meaning you don't get a stretched image(if you have a widescreen TV).

OVU6K.png


The HUD is stretched though. :p

I won't deny it, but Wipeout 3 was a really good looking game on the PS1.

The Sega Saturn didn't have a port of Wipeout 3, but it did have ports of Wipeout 1 and 2 (XL/ 2097)

Wipeout 1 side by side comparison
Wipeout 2097 (XL) side by side comparison

Both games running on real hardware.

The Saturn ports are actually pretty impressive. But they both do suffer from a worse framerates (more notably 2097 than Wipeout 1) and lack hardware transparencies and light sourcing on the models. There were a few Saturn games that did achieve dynamic lighting and transparencies through software trickery, but these were things that the Saturn didn't really support through hardware like the PS1.

For completions sake, here's Wipeout 64 on the N64 for comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToSX20YfFyM

(not sure if this is running on emulation or real hardware though)
 

televator

Member
Awful lot of upscaled emulated images entering this thread recently. It just muddies the waters rather than enabling discussion.

There's an RE3 image that comes from a PS3 site. The PS3 does some filtering and up-scaling of PS1 games. There's others from Wikipedia which I'm certain people could easily submit emulated images on...

Edit: Now people are comparing emulated shots openly! Well this thread's going nowhere now...
 
It is hilarious watching some of these arguments.

Both systems had some incredible looking games. Both systems set standards that are still alive today. Most analog control archetypes are still based on the Mario and Zelda style. Most controllers take direct inspiration from Sony's Dual Shock.

N64 has the edge in functional 3D.

But that meant fuckall in that era.
 

jett

D-Member
I have to correct you on this Black Falcon

A Black Falcon said:
The way the N64 does those huge areas in games is by directly streaming them off the cart. You can't do that in a CD game.

First off, there are a multitude of disc-based games that seamlessly stream content, even on the PS1. The most well-known example is Soul Reaver.

Second, most N64 loaded levels into memory the regular way without any sort of streaming, including Mario 64 and both Zeldas. There are constant "loading screens", what do you think those fade to blacks are for? :p I can't think of other N64 games with "huge" areas.

And there are N64 games with noticeable loading, like Wipeout 64, anyway. Going with carts was a mistake, period. History has factually proved this.
 

Celine

Member
There are some 2d games which might have benefitted more from another microcode option, but Nintendo pretty much only allowed Boss Games (World Driver...) and Factor 5 (Battle for Naboo...) to use custom microcode, of outside developers, and that was because they convinced Nintendo to allow them to do it.
Actually there was another studio that was allowed to do their own microcode, it was Utopia Technologies.
Too bad their 2 games in development for N64 were never released.
 

WillyFive

Member
I have to correct you on this Black Falcon



First off, there are a multitude of disc-based games that seamlessly stream content, even on the PS1. The most well-known example is Soul Reaver.

Second, most N64 loaded levels into memory the regular way without any sort of streaming, including Mario 64 and both Zeldas. There are constant "loading screens", what do you think those fade to blacks are for? :p I can't think of other N64 games with "huge" areas.

And there are N64 games with noticeable loading, like Wipeout 64, anyway. Going with carts was a mistake, period. History has factually proved this.

Yes, but we wouldn't have gone games as good with CD's.

Those fade to blacks were usually only one second long (if that), and having a 30 second long loading screen inbetween would have ruined the game, if not made it impossible (like in Banjo-Tooie, where a cutscene frequently jumps between levels in real time; gameplay that requires this would have to be dropped (like the UFO shooting level) and cutscenes would have to be completely pre-rendered).

Not to mention discs are breakable and scratch-able, they are terrible for kids games, since kids treat stuff like dirt. Not to mention the glass cases they came in, which many times broke and posed hazards for kids' hands and feet.
 

Mlatador

Banned
It was definitely more powerful, of course.

Something like Waverace just wasn't able on PS1. Or Perfect Dark, Zelda OOT and Sin & Punishment.

But since the PS1 had cd-storage and the N64 has some problems at certain areas, both were able to produce games with looked really good, especially if developers found smart ways to make their games pretty, like they did with pre-rendered backgrounds.
 

Also, Nintendo owned on the factories that made the carts so you were forced to go through them and accept their rules and they got a cut from that as well. N64 using carts is not only the one major thing that lost them the crown of king of the gaming world but also was the very height of their greed and determination to take advantage of third parties any way they could which is still being felt even today.
 
Had no idea that Nintendo's royalty fee was so high on the N64. I thought it was in-line with the PSX, but the cart manufacturing fucked it up.
No, the high royalty is on top of the much higher cart manufacturing cost. Nintendo still had the highest royalties with the Gamecube too, I'm pretty sure -- they reduced them from the N64, but they were still above the competition. And yeah, in both cases, it definitely hurt Nintendo.

I played it a few months after it came out - I was young and had only seen screenshots of the game.

When I realised that I could literally jump into the river and swim under the bridge, no invisible walls, I was dumbfounded. When I first approached a painting and it shimmered like a wall of water, I felt that in this mere ten minutes, there was nothing like this in gaming - it was an advancement of exploration into 3D the likes of which the console industry had never seen.

At the time, describing myself as being "impressed" would be a dramatic understatement. It was revolutionary, in visuals, 3D control and design, and in opportunities for exploration.
Yeah, in 1996, Mario 64 was the most mind-blowingly amazing thing ever. I agree that later on it didn't look quite as shocking as it did when first released, though; I got my N64 in Sept. '99, and got Mario 64 and OoT, and definitely remember thinking that while Mario 64 looked good, it didn't look as great as I'd remembered it looking when I'd played it in '96. But in '96... visually, and in design, Mario 64 was the most amazing thing I've ever seen, versus what came before. I don't know if it can be topped, really, in impact...

Yeah, I didn't play it at first either because it was sold out everywhere. I did get to play it around a month after launch and was also playing Tomb Raider at the time as well. With the freedom given and complexity of the environments in Tomb Raider, Mario wasn't nearly as impressive for me. It was cleaner, but also simpler
By the time I got an N64 my PC definitely had better graphics (I had a Voodoo2...), but still I thought that the N64 looked good too... not quite as good, but good. I still think that. Maybe it helped that the only time I thought the N64 had the best graphics ever was from well before I actually owned one? It was the games that really made me love the N64 though, above the visuals.

Well, Sonic Adventure wasn't particularly high in polys and IIRC that went up to 300k polys a second in some scenes, which is far above what's possible on the previous generation. I remember the other games you listed and yeah they weren't extremely high in geometry, mostly in the environments but there are aspects with most of those games where the geometry is higher than what's possible on the previous generation. The cars in Speed Devils and vehicle in Red Dog are higher in complexity than what's seen on the PS1/N64/Saturn.
Maybe so, but if so not by much at all. I guess that you probably are right about the polygon difference being more in the environments, but still...

As I've said the DC CAN do more, it just didn't usually, mostly because of the very short lifecycle I would imagine. Oh, for a few more that do impress me visually, along with DoA2 and Test Drive Le Mans, I'd also mention Under Defeat and Propeller Arena.

Pod was always an ugly game IMO and Trick Style looks amazing to me at launch, but that was mostly down to the texture work and not the poly count.
I don't know, I think Pod looks okay... it's an atrociously bad sequel to the first Pod, but is one of my favorite DC racing games anyway, which is why I mentioned it.

So I can definitely see some of these games working if you shave off some polys here and there. Only catch is most of them are launch or near launch titles. I think it took time for devs to get up to speed on their tools and such since they were still so invested into developing on the prior gen. It didn't take long for more impressive DC games to come out though. Sega GT, Shenmue, MDK2, D2, 2K sports line, RE:CV, HoTD2, and more all had geometry above PS1/N64 levels.
But how much above PS1/N64 levels are you talking, for most of those?

I thought the use of quads could help texture distortion, no?
Somewhat, I think, but you still have problems.

It's a matter of preference.

But it is true that the N64 graphics include things we have come to expect from graphics today, like solid objects even when the camera moves, smooth textures (as low-res they may be), and even anti-aliasing. By comparison, the PS1/Saturn graphics feel incomplete, like the software mode of early PC games that didn't have Direct3D enabled. N64 was a prototype of modern graphics, as opposed as an extension of the early experimental 3D graphics of the early 90's, late 80's.
Agreed. And yeah, I thought those mid '90s, non-Direct3D PC games looked horrible too. There's a reason I bought that Voodoo2 card, and it wasn't just because that S3 ViRGE was one of the worst things ever... software was awful too.

Anyone try Forsaken on PSX? Unlike the N64 version it runs almost entirely at 60 fps on PSX while delivering the same levels as the PC version (which the 64 game does not).

Also, Quake 2 on PSX is an impressive piece of work. It runs at a higher framerate, contains more detail, and features much smoother animation than the N64 game. Plus it managed to combat texture warping beautifully.

Quake 2 PSX used a custom engine unrelated to the Quake engine while the N64 game used the same engine that was designed to run Quake 64. So while they were basically the same games, the end results were vastly different.

Look at dat textures!

http://i.picpar.com/1cdf21fa591743ebe4669ed438c14f36f4198e6a.JPG
http://i.picpar.com/5a8f342bc5af66c617deeb594021b77a6be082f4.JPG


It does change the appearance of the distortion but there is still distortion nonetheless.
Quake 2 is a completely different game on the N64, all levels were replaced with new ones... it's not a port. The same goes for Forsaken -- Forsaken 64 is an original title, not a PC port like the PS1 title is. I think that Forsaken 64's quite good. Quake 2 for N64's good as well, but between those two I definitely prefer Forsaken. Of course though, that's probably because I had more interest in Descent than Quake...

I uploaded some more pics of WE3, cuz that game is just damn pretty.

No, Special Edition always runs at 512x256, wether widescreen correction is on or off.
Wipeout 3 is one of the best looking PS1 games for sure. The game's so sharp, while most PS1 games are so fuzzy... definitely impressive work. It's kind of too bad that the Special Edition was Europe only. I do find Wipeout 3 harder than the previous games, though. That's part of why Wipeout 64 is my favorite one that gen; it's hard, but not as brutal as Wipeout 3.

The N64 was a Fararri with a lawn mower gas tank. Had that thing been CD based, it would have blown the doors off the Playstation technically and would have never lost a single 3rd party franchise.
I already said this in my last post, but no, that is wrong. The N64 benefits from using cartridges in several important ways, so the games would have been worse overall (smaller areas, loading times...), and just having carts would not necessarily have given Nintendo a sure victory, either, given the huge difference in licensing fees and how on Playstation third parties didn't have to compete with Nintendo's IPs.

How was this game?

I only have the first two
Turok 3 is very good. It's completely different again, maybe even more different from Turok 2 than Turok 2 was from the first game, but though in some ways it's less ambitious than Turok 2 as it's a fairly linear title, and not a giant, living world like Turok 2, I think that that makes it a better overall game. It's sort of Turok with some bits of Half-Life mixed in. Definitely play it if you enjoy N64 FPSes.

What exactly could the N64 handle in terms of 2D?

There was the pre-rendered stuff like KI:Gold and Yoshi's Story, but i was disappointed in those visuals overall, cause like the 3D stuff, they had the vaseline effect. Was there a reason it was like that?
It really ruined what was otherwise nice art (Yoshi's Story anyway).
DKC on SNES still looked nicer to my eye cause of that vaseline.

Was it impossible to do something crisp like you'd see in a Capcom fighter on Saturn?
I think SF3 was rumoured for N64 at one point (before it hit arcades IIRC) - would it have been able to handle it i wonder.
Crisp? You'd need to talk Nintendo into allowing you to use custom microcode for that. But as for what it could do in 2d, yeah, there are very few games to look at. Mischief Makers, Bangaioh, Yoshi's Story, and almost all of the puzzle games are pretty much it. Well, and Wonder Project J2 too, for a Japan-only title. That's an issue of what developers wanted to make on the system, though, not a hardware limitation problem.

Interesting read, thanks! Reading what you are saying about triangle polygons vs. quads I wonder; did the developers have to remodel every 3D model for the Saturn version to models with quads? Or am I not understanding this right?
Yes indeed, they had to remodel games in quads for the Saturn.

Oh wow, really?

I kind of feel that way about N64.

I only recently added one to my collection and, outside of a few classics, it's very difficult to find great N64 games. Most of the carts I've ended up collecting are PC ports of games I wanted to see running on N64.

The PSX holds up far better today with a wider variety of more playable games (especially 2D games and the simple but smooth 60 fps 3D games). Nearly everything on N64 consists of blurry polygon based visuals with a very low framerate.
There are lots of great N64 games... read my review thread? Of course it helps if you like the genres that the N64 was better at, like 3d action-adventure, racing, 3d platformer, FPS, and such, though. I like the N64's library more, but certainly would admit that the PS1 has a greater variety of genres represented.

That's close, but as you noted, still off. The HUD elements are displayed at a clean 240p on a real N64 with hard pixels. It looks much better than what you see there.

The N64 also produces very messy filtering. You might be right about some sort of edge filter going on. I'm not sure how they would have done it but games on n64 are surprisingly clean. The hard polygon edges in Mario 64 are surprisingly smooth rather than jaggy on a real SDTV.

What you get with an emulators does not really resemble the real thing.
I really wish that the N64 and PS1 had emulators like SSF for the Saturn, that try to accurately emulate the hardware instead of "improving" upon it... that'd be great, and is needed, but doesn't look like it's happening, sadly.

Yeah, the DC's progressive scan support was perhaps the biggest thing it had over earlier consoles, visually.

I have to correct you on this Black Falcon



First off, there are a multitude of disc-based games that seamlessly stream content, even on the PS1. The most well-known example is Soul Reaver.
That's true, that and Driver show that you can do streaming, with enough work. It's a LOT easier on N64 though.

Second, most N64 loaded levels into memory the regular way without any sort of streaming, including Mario 64 and both Zeldas. There are constant "loading screens", what do you think those fade to blacks are for? :p I can't think of other N64 games with "huge" areas.
That kind of "loading" is exactly the advantage of a cart, though -- a loading screen so short you don't even notice it. The N64 would not be better with PS1-length or longer loading screens all over the place!

As for other games with huge areas, the Rare 3d platformers immediately come to mind, certainly, for some more examples.

And there are N64 games with noticeable loading, like Wipeout 64, anyway.
Yeah, that or Hydro Thunder have loading times because of audio decompression. They're still shorter than most PS1 load times though.

Going with carts was a mistake, period. History has factually proved this.
No, it wasn't a mistake. For the time it was the correct decision, and resulted in better games than the system would have had had it used discs.

Poorly written on my part, but that's what I meant to say. No home console system from that era ran at 60FPS progressive scan. 60FPS games are really running at 30Hz(or 31Hz) even though they're rendering two images together interlaced at once. Though the Dreamcast did have a VGA mode with 480p 60fps progressive scan. Though apparently the Saturn did support progressive scan to a certain degree as well. But I don't think any game ever supported it, nor is there any way to enable this mode without hard wiring the Saturn to do so.
Yeah, nobody had done real progressive scan before the DC. Definitely a big step forward.

Oh I was wrong, Decathlete was 704x480i as well. But most of these other games you mentioned all ran at 704x448, or 704x240 with lower vertical resolutions.
I don't think using a high resolution like that is much of an accomplishment if the game is only using it in menus... it only really matters if it's being used ingame!

Umm... as far as I know, exporting a quad based model to a triangles is easy, as you can make quads out of triangles. But exporting a triangle based model to quads is not so easy. But it really depends on the complexity of the model. So I would imagine that in most cases, yes. Models would have to be rebuilt for the Saturn when porting from the PS1.
Good explanation here. And yeah, I'm sure having to make everything into quads did hurt some of those PS1-to-Saturn ports, in addition to everything else that made the Saturn harder to program for.

Quads do have a few advantages over triangle, but they also have many disadvantages as well. In the Saturn's case, quads did have less texture warping and distortion than the PS1's triangle based rendering. You could actually also render curved surfaces much easier on quads than you could in triangles. But things like clipping and collision detection are much more of a pain in the ass to deal with for programmers. This is why the entire PC industry adopted triangles as the main form of rendering over quads.
This is true, but even if there's less texture warping and distortion, the Saturn definitely has some texture warping and distortion, compared to systems which can fix that in hardware.

I won't deny it, but Wipeout 3 was a really good looking game on the PS1.

The Sega Saturn didn't have a port of Wipeout 3, but it did have ports of Wipeout 1 and 2 (XL/ 2097)

Wipeout 1 side by side comparison
Wipeout 2097 (XL) side by side comparison

Both games running on real hardware.

The Saturn ports are actually pretty impressive. But they both do suffer from a worse framerates (more notably 2097 than Wipeout 1) and lack hardware transparencies and light sourcing on the models. There were a few Saturn games that did achieve dynamic lighting and transparencies through software trickery, but these were things that the Saturn didn't really support through hardware like the PS1.

For completions sake, here's Wipeout 64 on the N64 for comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToSX20YfFyM

(not sure if this is running on emulation or real hardware though)
That Wipeout 64 video might be real hardware, but yeah, it's hard to tell. The game clearly is based on Wipeout XL's graphics, but improves over them.

As for the Saturn games, I have the first Wipeout for Saturn. It looks reasonably comparable to the PS1 game in most respects, but as I said earlier in the thread, you really can tell that the Saturn can't easily do transparencies, and the special effects (explosions and such) look a lot worse on Saturn than on PS1. Otherwise though, very similar. I like the game more on Saturn overall because I much prefer the redesigned wall-hitting system that only knocks off a little speed when you bump a wall, instead of dropping your acceleration to zero as happens in the PS1 version. It makes the Saturn version so much more playable...
 

MYE

Member
I have to correct you on this Black Falcon



First off, there are a multitude of disc-based games that seamlessly stream content, even on the PS1. The most well-known example is Soul Reaver.

Second, most N64 loaded levels into memory the regular way without any sort of streaming, including Mario 64 and both Zeldas. There are constant "loading screens", what do you think those fade to blacks are for? :p I can't think of other N64 games with "huge" areas.

And there are N64 games with noticeable loading, like Wipeout 64, anyway. Going with carts was a mistake, period. History has factually proved this.

Regardless of how its done or if they are loading screens or not, fading to black when transitioning from one large area to the other is tasteful if it lasts 1 or 2 seconds.
 
History has factually proved this.

It not only made them lose major marketshare, it cost them big time with third party relationships, and hurt consumers by driving up prices of games. Sticking with carts is one of the all time biggest blunders in the game industry.
 

jett

D-Member
Yes, but we wouldn't have gone games as good with CD's.

Those fade to blacks were usually only one second long (if that), and having a 30 second long loading screen inbetween would have ruined the game, if not made it impossible (like in Banjo-Tooie, where a cutscene frequently jumps between levels in real time; gameplay that requires this would have to be dropped (like the UFO shooting level) and cutscenes would have to be completely pre-rendered).

Not to mention discs are breakable and scratch-able, they are terrible for kids games, since kids treat stuff like dirt. Not to mention the glass cases they came in, which many times broke and posed hazards for kids' hands and feet.

Games today must be quite unplayable for you today, and damn those kids breaking all my discs. :/

BTW, out of the 70-80 games I used to own for my PS1 not a single one had 30 second loading times. And there are several smartly designed games on the PS1 with negligible loading times. As far as I'm concerned 30-second loading times it something I've been dealing with this generation.
 
Crash in the way of level design is the like the perfect continuation of the SMB and World design. Fast linear platforming levels. Only in 3D.

Pacing and intricate design elements vary wildly between the two series. But in the way of level design Crash is a more consistent 3D evolution than Mario 64 was. As much as I loved the latter.

Still can't believe they animated Crash's face on the per vertex level.

Also I'm not going to get into the carts vs disc thing. I got tired of that in the mid 90's. Discs were the future. Huge fuckup on Nintendo's part. Sacrificing storage space for minor perks. It cost them Final Fantasy and spurred marketshare decline across two generations.

I don't care if they gained quicker loading. They lost market leadership in the largest era of gaming expansion.
 

Melchiah

Member
Come on son :b

The areas in SM64 were like 100x the ones in Crash Bandicoot. Crash 1-3 are fucking awesome though.

He posted a pic of early flagship platformer, I did the same. BTW, I find it odd, that someone calls me a son. I probably could be your dad due to my age. =D
 

brumx

Member
Soul Caliber is still one of the best looking games ever made on DC if not the best one.
I'm more amazed by DC than was PS2 because PS2 games suffered from screen tearing and dull colors in some games.
 

MYE

Member
Are we downplaying the N64's (near) non existing loading screens and the Playstations (often) long loading sessions?

The PSX was annoying as hell in this regard, the N64 had issues in other areas. No need to sugarcoat it.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Poorly written on my part, but that's what I meant to say. No home console system from that era ran at 60FPS progressive scan. 60FPS games are really running at 30Hz(or 31Hz) even though they're rendering two images together interlaced at once. Though the Dreamcast did have a VGA mode with 480p 60fps progressive scan. Though apparently the Saturn did support progressive scan to a certain degree as well. But I don't think any game ever supported it, nor is there any way to enable this mode without hard wiring the Saturn to do so.
You keep saying this but I don't think it's true.

240p is considered progressive scan as it does not alternate scanlines.

240p is handled completely different than 480i on SDTVs.

240p is progressively interlaced standard definition video in that there are scanlines present for every other line that are completely blank while the FULL image is displayed within the even scanlines. The entire image is drawn every single frame.

480i alternates between odd and even scanlines displaying 60 fields per second. This is the mode you are referring to and is not how most PSX, Saturn, N64 and older systems handled rendering.

I'm more amazed by DC than was PS2 because PS2 games suffered from screen tearing and dull colors in some games.
That's a load of shit. PS2 has way more games (percentage wise) that run at 60 fps than the Dreamcast. Tearing was very rarely an issue on the system. The colors were not "dull" either (that depends on the game).

It DID use interlacing for a lot of games, however, which produced a jaggier image. Still, many of those games ran with a full frame buffer rather than using field rendering so it wasn't too bad.

There are lots of great N64 games... read my review thread? Of course it helps if you like the genres that the N64 was better at, like 3d action-adventure, racing, 3d platformer, FPS, and such, though. I like the N64's library more, but certainly would admit that the PS1 has a greater variety of genres represented.
The problem is that most of those genres are done *MUCH MUCH* better on newer platforms making it hard to return to. The N64 was too primitive to handle them well.

A lot of the best PSX games that hold up, however, were created in a very "old school" method more in line with 16-bit machines. N64 was full of games looking towards the future that no longer hold up while PSX has plenty of games made in the old school mode that do. Now, the 3D PSX games that try to do more hold up very poorly (worse than N64 titles), but those aren't the ones I would return to. Just my opinion.

I could stomach N64 visuals better if the framerates were so damn low most of the time. Sub-20 fps was simply too common and it renders many of those games unplayable by any standards.
 

Mit-

Member
Why do I feel like for every good N64 example, there's a dozen other games with zero draw distance, horrible fog, and terribly low resolution?

My main system back then was the N64, and I just have way more memories of squinting at the TV while playing N64, and less memories of that on PS1. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (1 and 2) I always felt was much better on PS1. However that could have just been me being biased about the horrible soundtrack and reduced content of the N64 version due to the storage medium.

Anything made/published by Nintendo was gravy on N64, but I always had a hard time with Perfect Dark. Hard to see, and the blurry/dizzy mechanics were atrocious. Multiplayer with punching and n-bombs? 4 player splitscreen? Give up. Push all the buttons and hope for the best.
 

Melchiah

Member
Soul Caliber is still one of the best looking games ever made on DC if not the best one.
I'm more amazed by DC than was PS2 because PS2 games suffered from screen tearing and dull colors in some games.

I had rented a DC with Soul Calibur, RE: Code Veronica, Zombie Revenge, and Quake III Arena, before I bought the PS2. Yet the launch game SSX overwhelmed me far more than anything on DC, and it definitely didn't have dull colors.
 

jett

D-Member
A Black Falcon said:
I really wish that the N64 and PS1 had emulators like SSF for the Saturn, that try to accurately emulate the hardware instead of "improving" upon it... that'd be great, and is needed, but doesn't look like it's happening, sadly.

pSX also known aspSX fin is what you are looking for. It strived for accuracy and high compatibility. Games look the way they are meant to look. It's what I used to take some of the pictures I posted.

There's no equivalent for the N64 though and that's a shame.

A Black Flacon said:
That kind of "loading" is exactly the advantage of a cart, though -- a loading screen so short you don't even notice it. The N64 would not be better with PS1-length or longer loading screens all over the place!

But it's not streaming.

As for other games with huge areas, the Rare 3d platformers immediately come to mind, certainly, for some more examples.

Ah yes, Rare aped Nintendo so much I forgot about their games. :p

And there are N64 games with noticeable loading, like Wipeout 64, anyway.
Yeah, that or Hydro Thunder have loading times because of audio decompression. They're still shorter than most PS1 load times though.

Mmm Wipeout 64 has 5 second loading times, Wipeout 3 takes six seconds to load a track. Kind of a wash, and I'll take that additional second for higher quality and uncompressed redbook audio. :p
No, it wasn't a mistake. For the time it was the correct decision, and resulted in better games than the system would have had had it used discs.

Heavy loss of marketshare, third party support, public perception which all resulted in very low hardware and software numbers. Not just for the N64, but these all carried over to the Gamecube. It's unfathomable to me that someone could not consider it a mistake, but I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from you, no offense. P
 

Alchemy

Member
I love how these threads turn into people posting shots from emulators or really small screen shots. 3D from that generation was abhorrent. The only games that come close to looking good anymore are stylized art styles that use plenty of burnt in vertex colors.
 

brumx

Member
I had rented a DC with Soul Calibur, RE: Code Veronica, Zombie Revenge, and Quake III Arena, before I bought the PS2. Yet the launch game SSX overwhelmed me far more than anything on DC, and it definitely didn't have dull colors.



I guess you did not play MGS2 on PS2 at the time and MGS3 the screen would tear big time
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
I love how these threads turn into people posting shots from emulators or really small screen shots. 3D from that generation was abhorrent. The only games that come close to looking good anymore are stylized art styles that use plenty of burnt in vertex colors.
Uhhh, those consoles output mostly at 320x240 which WILL APPEAR "really small" on a high resolution display.

I guess you did not play MGS2 on PS2 at the time and MGS3 the screen would tear big time
Are you seriously trying to judge the entire PS2 library on those two titles? Kojima selected very specifically subdued shades of colors for those games. That's not the hardwares fault.

That said, both of them FAR FAR exceed anything the Dreamcast could have delivered.

Go play Burnout 3 and compare that to any driving game on the Dreamcast, if you want to play this game.
 

dimb

Bjergsen is the greatest midlane in the world
I guess you did not play MGS2 on PS2 at the time and MGS3 the screen would tear big time
Subsistence is one of my most played games and I have never noticed tearing. I don't really know what the relevance of these games are to this thread though.
 
I had rented a DC with Soul Calibur, RE: Code Veronica, Zombie Revenge, and Quake III Arena, before I bought the PS2. Yet the launch game SSX overwhelmed me far more than anything on DC, and it definitely didn't have dull colors.
SSX was HAAAAWT!

I couldn't believe how many polygons I was watching being crunched in realtime, and those bright snazzy particle effects. The only thing close (and it wasn't close) on the DC was Trickstyle.

I liked the texture clarity seen in stuff like Code Veronica and Shenmue, but it was plain as day that the DC was triangle limited compared to the PS2.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
SSX was HAAAAWT!

I couldn't believe how many polygons I was watching being crunched in realtime, and those bright snazzy particle effects. The only thing close (and it wasn't close) on the DC was Trickstyle.

I liked the texture clarity seen in stuff like Code Veronica and Shenmue, but it was plain as day that the DC was triangle limited compared to the PS2.
Yeah, Trickstyle was a Criterion game as well (who would go on to deliver so many beautiful 60 fps PS2 titles). Trickstyle, unfortunately, ran at a VERY VERY low framerate. It was so damn choppy. :(
 
My favorite part of N64 vs PS1 threads are when people constantly show pictures from emulators (usually with enhanced image quality) instead of screen captures from the actual system.

Hint: They are not valid for discussion.
 

Melchiah

Member
I guess you did not play MGS2 on PS2 at the time and MGS3 the screen would tear big time

I didn't, as I don't like the franchise. I did play Shadow of Memories, Silent Hill 2 and Soul Reaver 2 at the time MGS2 was released, and noticed no obtrusive screen tearing.

Screen tearing never bothered me as much the flat looking graphics in some DC games; eg. Tekken Tag Tournament vs. Soul Calibur.
 

MYE

Member
My favorite part of N64 vs PS1 threads are when people constantly show pictures from emulators (usually with enhanced image quality) instead of screen captures from the actual system.

Its actually pretty damn hard to get proper screens of these older games.
 

jett

D-Member
My favorite part of N64 vs PS1 threads are when people constantly show pictures from emulators (usually with enhanced image quality) instead of screen captures from the actual system.

Hint: They are not valid for discussion.

Captures from emulators without any added effects or improvements of any sort are perfectly valid. You are only missing the fuzziness that a RCA connection brings. :p
 
It not only made them lose major marketshare, it cost them big time with third party relationships, and hurt consumers by driving up prices of games. Sticking with carts is one of the all time biggest blunders in the game industry.
While carts had a partial role in the first two of those (but only partial! It was NOT the only reason for either of those things happening), it didn't drive up prices. N64 prices weren't higher than SNES or Genesis prices. If anything, they were often lower -- SNES/Genesis games sometimes got up to $100, but N64 games didn't go that high. Also, by '99 most new N64 games weren't over $50 or maybe $60 for a few titles. SNES/Genesis games were expensive to the end.

No, what happened there was that Sony drove DOWN prices.

Yes, but we wouldn't have gone games as good with CD's.

Those fade to blacks were usually only one second long (if that), and having a 30 second long loading screen inbetween would have ruined the game, if not made it impossible (like in Banjo-Tooie, where a cutscene frequently jumps between levels in real time; gameplay that requires this would have to be dropped (like the UFO shooting level) and cutscenes would have to be completely pre-rendered).

Not to mention discs are breakable and scratch-able, they are terrible for kids games, since kids treat stuff like dirt. Not to mention the glass cases they came in, which many times broke and posed hazards for kids' hands and feet.

Right, cart games are better (or were, at that point, anyway), and that's why sticking with carts was, in my opinion, absolutely the right thing to do. And good point about stuff like B-T.

As for kids games and scratching, well, that's why kids should have Nintendo handhelds, and not consoles, right?

Actually there was another studio that was allowed to do their own microcode, it was Utopia Technologies.
Too bad their 2 games in development for N64 were never released.
Huh, I don't remember if I've heard of them. What were the games they were working on?

Going by sales sure. Usability was superior on carts and the games were bigger and more complex on them though.
Yeah, I said what I did because I care more about the effect on game quality than the effect on sales.

Come on son :b

The areas in SM64 were like 100x the ones in Crash Bandicoot. Crash 1-3 are fucking awesome though.
Yeah, they're very different games, and Crash certainly isn't as "next-gen" in feel as Mario, with how completely railed it is.

The two games are similar in one respect, though -- both Crash and Mario are rendered with flat-shaded polygons and only a few strategically located textures (their eyes, for instance), instead of being fully textured models. And in both cases, that was an important element of what made the games look as good as they do.

Regardless of how its done or if they are loading screens or not, fading to black when transitioning from one large area to the other is tasteful if it lasts 1 or 2 seconds.
Yeah, at that length it's not bothersome.

Games today must be quite unplayable for you today, and damn those kids breaking all my discs. :/

BTW, out of the 70-80 games I used to own for my PS1 not a single one had 30 second loading times. And there are several smartly designed games on the PS1 with negligible loading times. As far as I'm concerned 30-second loading times it something I've been dealing with this generation.
Sure, they're not usually 30 seconds on PS1, but they're almost always there, and are many times longer than N64 load times, that's for sure. And the other advantages have all been said already.

pSX also known aspSX fin is what you are looking for. It strived for accuracy and high compatibility. Games look the way they are meant to look. It's what I used to take some of the pictures I posted.

There's no equivalent for the N64 though and that's a shame.
Hmm, I'll have to look that emulator up. But yeah, it's a real shame. Heck, there isn't even an N64 emulator that can play all of the games, much less one with accurate graphics!

But it's not streaming.
True, but it's load times so short that you can't really tell the difference unless you're paying close attention... maybe I should have mentioned that too though, it is slightly different.

For some games that have to be streaming, though, Turoks 1 and 2 must be, for sure. Absolutely gigantic levels. Actually, does Turok 2 have any breaks at all? Isn't it just one giant area, except for save stations and such?

Ah yes, Rare aped Nintendo so much I forgot about their games. :p
Rare's N64 3d platformers are some of the best ever in the genre...

Mmm Wipeout 64 has 5 second loading times, Wipeout 3 takes six seconds to load a track. Kind of a wash, and I'll take that additional second for higher quality and uncompressed redbook audio. :p
They're both good games. I do like Wipeout 64's soundtrack for sure though, it's good.

Heavy loss of marketshare, third party support, public perception which all resulted in very low hardware and software numbers. Not just for the N64, but these all carried over to the Gamecube. It's unfathomable to me that someone could not consider it a mistake, but I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from you, no offense. P
Very low? No, 32 million systems sold isn't "very low"... the N64 sold more than 10 millions over the Gamecube, triple what the Dreamcast sold, etc. The system was not a failure. It did well enough for Nintendo and did make money for them.

Also, Nintendo's main problem with the N64 was that it didn't do well enough in Japan or Europe. In the US it did okay -- it had about a third of the market, with ~20 million sold versus ~40-45 million total PSX/PSones, and sold very close to the numbers that the SNES had reached (24 million or so in the Americas for the SNES, I think it was). In Europe they saw a slight decline from the SNES, but never had had that great sales to begin with, but it's the failure in Japan that really killed the N64, total sales wise. They went from 20 million or something to maybe 5.5... so yeah, losing the Japanese third parties certainly hurt in that respect. But even so, it was absolutely not a failure.
 
It not only made them lose major marketshare, it cost them big time with third party relationships, and hurt consumers by driving up prices of games. Sticking with carts is one of the all time biggest blunders in the game industry.

Driving up prices of games? That would probably have happened had everyone stuck with carts, but game prices dropped dramatically during the N64 generation. And that didn't happen until the N64 arrived. Sony wasn't willing to lower the retail price of disc games until they saw an opportunity to undercut Nintendo's lowest possible price. Had Nintendo also used CD's, game would've likely stayed $60 all through that gen and the PS2 gen as well.

Sticking with carts was a bad idea for many reasons, but from a game design standpoint, it was the right call. Thankfully, back then Nintendo still thought making the best games was a great strategy.
 

Majmun

Member
Vagrant Story still looks great to me.

The only other Ps1 games who still look good are the ones with pre-rendered backgrounds.

And basically all N64 games look hideous now.
 
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